they f**ked up Tesla locked a customer's car out of 1/3 of its battery capacity for a $4.5k ransom

[LAwLz]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Yea but then we are talking about license of usage rather that purchase of goods still. You don't buy Windows, you buy a right to use it. You don't buy a right to use a Tesla you buy that actual car. You can buy a right of usage which is a lease agreement but the car was purchased.

So would this have been okay in your eyes if people who "bought Tesla cars" actually just bought a license to possess and use the car? I am just trying to wrap my head around why people seem completely fine with the same type of behaviour when it comes to software, and then react very strongly as soon as something similar happens to a car.

I've had countless discussions with people about how I don't think Microsoft should have the right to change my software without my permission on my computer. Yet some of the same people who defended Microsoft are in this thread and are completely outraged at Tesla for changing software without the owner's permission. It's the same thing to me.

 

 

10 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Tesla does have an additional software subscription service from what I understand but this is about the actual vehicle rather than this. It also starts to get a little tricky when the original purchaser signs the sales agreement which may have terms that may or may not allow this and then the vehicle is sold to another person who may never see this agreement, I bet there are laws and regulations around this too. I actually think Tesla is treading quite a lot of new ground in the vehicle industry which may or may not bite them in the long run.

I think it's an interesting situation as well. In some way, I think it was a shame that Tesla just gave the person the upgrade for free, because I think it would have been interesting to see how the court would have ruled on this.

We have a lot of examples of similar things happening in Sweden, regarding "incorrect sales that were discovered later", and in those cases our justice system sides with the seller, not the buyer. So in this case the buyer could have been charged with possession of stolen goods if they did not return it, although my guess is that there is some time limit on it.

That's the Swedish law though, which I think makes sense. Not sure what the law is in the US, which is also why I think it is so funny that some people are claiming that Tesla were in the wrong and doing something illegal. I am fairly sure those people don't actually have a clue what would have happened if this went to court.

 

 

13 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Car ownership culture just doesn't align with Tesla, with how people think and expect of car ownership and if that were to change I think it's got quite  along way to go.

Speaking of "car culture", I think that a lot of people behave completely irrationally and illogically when it comes to cars. "Car culture" is in my eyes often eerily similar to cults or religious groups. So something clashing with "car culture" matters very little to me.

 

It is worth noting that I generally agree with people that Tesla did something wrong in this situation. I don't entirely agree with the reasons people present, but I do find it fun to point out how this is in many ways similar to other situations where said people have sided with the company. I am mostly playing devil's advocate in this thread. Pointing out that the things are saying with great confidence might not be true, and that they are hypocrites for allowing things of the same nature to happen without any backlash in other markets.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

I am just trying to wrap my head around why people seem completely fine with the same type of behaviour when it comes to software

Well thing is it's not software. It's a physical item that supports configuration using software to change how it functions, which itself is fine. The issue is changing of the function after the fact when an established understanding of function has been made without notice or consent.

 

This is not the same thing as a change to how self driving works, which is subject to terms that allows this and doesn't change how any of the sensors themselves actually work. And even when this is done, has caused complaints.

 

Comparing this to software or just calling it software really does not apply. It's like SSDs that have internal physical overprovisioning and this is done in the firmware. You buy a 480GB SSD but it doesn't contain 480GB of NAND, it has more. Now picture an SSD company releasing a new firmware revision to fix an issue where some of these were 512GB because there was a fault in the firmware, people would 100% complain even though leaving it at 512GB would impact the endurance of the SSD which means the SSD company would be invalidating warranty claims of any not running at or above the firmware fix revision. But at the very least the issue would be communicated and owners would get a choice whether or not to apply the new firmware.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

So would this have been okay in your eyes if people who "bought Tesla cars" actually just bought a license to possess and use the car?

If it were in the terms of use and communicated then sure, communication goes a very long way to not pissing people off. If you have a lease agreement for a Tesla Model S 60 and it was operating as a 90 for 6 months then perfectly fair to align to the lease agreement. Tesla owns the car, not the person driving it in that situation.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Speaking of "car culture", I think that a lot of people behave completely irrationally and illogically when it comes to cars. "Car culture" is in my eyes often eerily similar to cults or religious groups. So something clashing with "car culture" matters very little to me.

I think you might be thinking of a slightly different thing, I don't mean "JDM Culture" etc I mean "My property, my rules, I own it". That's how cars are treated culturally, but that's simply how they have been since forever.

[Spotty]

40 minutes ago, LAwLz said:

So would this have been okay in your eyes if people who "bought Tesla cars" actually just bought a license to possess and use the car?

You're basically describing car leases. If the car was owned by Tesla (or a financing company) and leased to a customer then Tesla (or the financing company) would be within their right to end that arrangement and reclaim the car or, with notice, alter the terms of that agreement with the customer.

 

You can't compare services to sales. A service is an ongoing agreement between both parties and either party can terminate that agreement, barring any stipulations agreed upon such as a 12 month contract with exit penalties for leaving the contract early. A sale is finalised and the seller (or buyer) cannot alter the terms of the sale after the sale has completed.

The example you provided a few times was Floatplane, which is a service with an ongoing subscription fee. You don't buy a Floatplane account and own the account. You subscribe and in return you are provided access to the services which Floatplane provides, which is streaming. There are ongoing costs associated with operating that service and Floatplane would be within their right to terminate your subscription and cease providing their service to you.

 

"Cars as a service" is not something I'm a fan of, I personally would rather buy a car outright and own that vehicle, but it is a free market and companies are free to offer that option to customers if they choose. This particular discussion is not about cars as a service as the car was not sold as a service.

 

 

To sidetrack discussion slightly because I am curious; Do Tesla cars rely on a service that Tesla provides for the cars to function? If Tesla was to go bankrupt and the company ceased to operate and their servers were to be shut down, would the cars still work? If the answer is no then that is very frightening.

 

Regardless of whether the current owner of the vehicle should be entitled to the 90kWh battery doesn't matter in my opinion as Tesla should not modify a car without consent of the vehicle owner.

[wanderingfool2]

8 hours ago, leadeater said:

That actually isn't the correct question. Is Tesla, years later, entitled to take back the 30kwh they gave in error. Far as I know legally no. Nothing else actual matters other than this single issue, because that's where rubber meets the road. How the error came about and what any of the owners did about it no longer matters.

Actually it 100% matters how this came about, as it shows whether or not Tesla would be entitled to (even if the new owner objected).  Contractual obligations can follow the object; it's back to my analogy of someone selling a house with something built on the right-of-way and trying to claim since the city didn't verify it was on the right of way and since the house has been sold multiple times with that building there that the city has no rights to remove it.

 

To take the hypothetical to the extreme [but still a possibility], imagine they did the battery swap and told the owner they would need to remotely finish the configuration after it has been driven a few days, during that time the owner parks it in a parking garage where there is no signal, Tesla might contact him but he gives them the cold shoulder, eventually they see no point in contacting anymore [as it is going no where].  From there the guy sells the vehicle, and it's eventually brought in for service to restore the connectivity to the Tesla network.  This sets off a flag in their backend that the configuration service still needs completing; and so they finally complete the service.

 

The reason why I was also saying if the scenario happened regarding the hurricane is that it's an actual legitimate scenario that I could 100% see happening, which completely flips how people could view the issue. [The tl;dr scenario, hurricane hits, Tesla increases range to allow for evacuation, vehicle either doesn't get the update reverting after, or is preventing from getting it]

 

I still think in most scenarios Tesla still had a right to, just out of the fact the guy literally brought it in to restore Tesla services to his vehicle (Tesla App, Map, etc)...because that's the only reason why you would replace 3G for 4G module, to get the features that Tesla provides.  That has the consequence that they can change your vehicle to the correct state (or they could disable your service entirely letting you keep your 90 kWh)  At that point the guy needs to accept that he needs to pursue the seller who sold him the S60 as a S90.

 

5 hours ago, mr moose said:

It is irrelevant, he bought a car with a 90kw battery, he went to Tesla for other services and came out with a car that no longer uses the entire 90Kw battery.   regardless who's fault you think it is,  the buyer did not  ask let alone deserve to have his own property negatively changed and Tesla certainly had no right to make the changes. . 

You are assuming they have no right to change it.  Seriously, tell me if the scenario regarding the hurricane happened would you seriously think that Tesla has no right to make the changes?  [The tl;dr scenario, hurricane hits, Tesla increases range to allow for evacuation, vehicle either doesn't get the update reverting after, or is preventing from getting it].  Also changing from 3G to 4G service is highly important.  That guy essentially completely re-enabled Tesla access to be able to stuff to the vehicle, while then benefiting from the vehicle being able to communicate with Tesla services.

 

A good example of this is still the cable company example [because it actually happened to a family friend].  So here is the details, I'll call him bob for this story.  Bob got a free upgrade for a year with analog cable (old days where replacing filters at the connection point in the house was necessary), during that time Bob renovated his house and the contractors literally drywalled over the utility hatch.  Now when the tech came to remove the filter, there was a big stink where Bob threatened with lawyers and such...because he didn't want his wall ripped up.  They backed down, and Bob was allowed to keep what he had.  Fast forward 5 years, and there was a major signal issue relating to a broken wire.  The did have to open up the wall prior to where it entered the utility hatch to fix the issue.  While they were there they knew about the filter in the utility hatch being the wrong one...so when they repaired the cable they put in a filter there.  Bob was mad, actually contacted a lawyer, and was pretty much told they had the right to do that.

 

You talk about Tesla having no right to make the changes, but the guy pretty much willingly connected his Tesla to the Tesla network to benefit from all the features the Tesla network affords him (which in this case as well gives them the right to fix any configuration errors), but consider that the guy has no right to claim purchasing a vehicle as "S90" entitles him to it actually being a S90, when in actuality it was a S60.  He should have pursued the seller, who misrepresented.  Ultimately there is one party here who is in the wrong, and it's the seller who sold the vehicle as a S90 when in fact it was a S60.

[leadeater]

29 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Contractual obligations can follow the object

So does legal expiry of claim. And that is why the only thing that matters at this point is if Tesla  was entitled to do this or not, not what any of the owners past or present did. If Tesla cared enough about it within whatever fair and legal time frame as allowed then they could have done it remotely, sent a letter, filled suit, sent debt collectors or w/e else option there may have been. But they didn't know so didn't do any of these so they key factor here is the time allowed within the law to fix such an issue before that right is voided.

 

Companies make mistakes all the time, that doesn't actually give them unilateral right to rectify their mistake.

 

29 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

That has the consequence that they can change your vehicle to the correct state (or they could disable your service entirely letting you keep your 90 kWh)

If this was a thing it would have been done using the OTA while it was functioning. OTA was working years after the battery swap and misconfiguration. Reverting it to 60kwh is not requirement for the work carried out, the mistake was just noticed and changed without communicating it.

[wanderingfool2]

22 minutes ago, leadeater said:

So does legal expiry of claim. And that is why the only thing that matters at this point is if Tesla  was entitled to do this or not, not what any of the owners past or present did. If Tesla cared enough about it within whatever fair and legal time frame as allowed then they could have done it remotely, sent a letter, filled suit, sent debt collectors or w/e else option there may have been.

 

Companies make mistakes all the time, that doesn't actually give them unilateral right to rectify their mistake.

 

If this was a thing it would have been done using the OTA while it was functioning. OTA was working years after the battery swap and misconfiguration. Reverting it to 60kwh is not requirement for the work carried out, the mistake was just noticed and changed without communicating it.

Everyone is assuming they know when the supposed battery swap happened though and assuming that it occurred years and years ago.  Everyone is also assuming the misconfiguration occurred when it was the battery swap.  If lets say the vehicle was from Florida, there is a non-zero chance that this occurred during Hurricane Dorian [2019] where they sent a signal to unlock full range.  If the person didn't update or bring it in since 2019 then yea, they could easily be running around with the full potential, even though they know they shouldn't.

 

The fact is at this stage the guy tweeting about this is already twice removed from the original "event" that might have caused this.

 

As for the OTA, they can't run an OTA if it's parked in a parking garage without a signal (lots of parking garages don't have cell signal).  It could very well be that they setup schedules to revert the changes after a hurricane, but the vehicle wasn't connected back to the Tesla network until well after the scheduling occurred...so it will only be a service visit that it's realized the car is missing the correct configuration.

 

The new guy literally has only had the vehicle a few months, he should go after the seller not Tesla.  It's plain and simple as that.  Even ignoring all that though, he literally connected the vehicle back to the Tesla network; you say Tesla doesn't have a unilateral right to rectify their mistake, but the guy doesn't get to unilaterally benefit from using the Tesla service either.  Because again, he connected the vehicle back into Tesla network and presumably did so to benefit from the Tesla services such as using your phone as a key.  He's actively using their service (which utilizes their servers), so I would say that still grants them to rights to fix any software mistakes that is noted.

[tikker]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

To take the hypothetical to the extreme [but still a possibility], imagine they did the battery swap and told the owner they would need to remotely finish the configuration after it has been driven a few days, during that time the owner parks it in a parking garage where there is no signal, Tesla might contact him but he gives them the cold shoulder, eventually they see no point in contacting anymore [as it is going no where].  From there the guy sells the vehicle, and it's eventually brought in for service to restore the connectivity to the Tesla network.  This sets off a flag in their backend that the configuration service still needs completing; and so they finally complete the service.

If Tesla notified  the seller that they would need to do this and the seller ignored them, then they should've tried harder if they cared that much, through legal means if necessary. Negligence on the manufacturer's side should not be a reason to punish the customer.

 

If it was a factory issue maybe a few months old where 60 kWh models accidentally had 90 kWh range, but were still sold as 60, then I wouldn't see it as much of a big deal. As far as I understand now this wasn't a case where someone forgot to deliberately didn't connect it to the service to avoid the soft-lock though. From my understanding Tesla did a wrong install and forgot to lock the battery in addition to this being the second time the car was sold not by Tesla if I understand his tweets correctly, so they had no ownership over it anymore. Not locking the battery was their mistake. They should have checked "hey you have a 90 kWh capacity but a 60 kWh model, how come?", which if they keep enough records would reveal they failed to do their job years ago. That should have been the end of it. I do think there are situations where they have the right, but at this moment I don't consider this to be one of them. What if you buy a grey version from someone because you like grey and then on your next service run they paint it white without asking, because they noticed it was originally sold as white.

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You are assuming they have no right to change it.  Seriously, tell me if the scenario regarding the hurricane happened would you seriously think that Tesla has no right to make the changes?  [The tl;dr scenario, hurricane hits, Tesla increases range to allow for evacuation, vehicle either doesn't get the update reverting after, or is preventing from getting it].

Not really the same comparison in my eyes. You could argue no, since it's technically not their property, but on the other hand a hurricane is a force majeure and would probably fall under extraordinary circumstances. If your city was flooding and the municipality was dropping sandbags on your lawn to protect your house one wouldn't demand them to be taken away since it's their property and they never asked for it either. A few may try to argue they are theirs now, but most would also have no problem giving them back. If the hurricane upgrade came with a clear notice that it was temporary then I would have no problem with them undoing it afterwards and I would consider that within their rights within a reasonable timeframe.

[ewitte]

This is why I will not get a Tesla I'm not paying for a car with microtransactions you can't upgrade on your own.  There are actually consumer protection laws for this type of stuff.

[Ydfhlx]

Yet another company that has its customer service centre on twitter. What were they thinking? It was obvious that in the age of Internet this will find its way to the public. And all that for $4,500.

[leadeater]

36 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Everyone is assuming they know when the supposed battery swap happened though and assuming that it occurred years and years ago.  Everyone is also assuming the misconfiguration occurred when it was the battery swap

Being that the vehicle has been through 3 owners and the first owner did the battery warranty claim and it's well known 90kwh batteries are installed in those situations limited to 60kwh I would say it's a fair assumption that the battery replacement is over 12 months ago and that this is also the cause of it and not the off chance this is one state that could possibly be affected in your scenario and that 3G connectivity for the change was working.

 

I think your scenario is so far out there in terms of likelihood it's not worth assuming that is anything near as close.

 

36 minutes ago, wanderingfool2 said:

he should go after the seller not Tesla.  It's plain and simple as that. 

The seller didn't remove 30kwh of battery capacity without consent. You want MCU2 then accept 30kwh removal or come pickup your car and we will no longer service it.

 

Tesla does not own the car, whenever I get my car serviced I must consent to any work and any parts purchases required. What I do not get ever, is parts changed on my car and a fee without being rung first. They won't even take off anything illegal either, because again not their property.

 

The repeating them here is communication, which Tesla failed to do.

[wanderingfool2]

32 minutes ago, leadeater said:

I think your scenario is so far out there in terms of likelihood it's not worth assuming that is anything near as close.

It's a bit ironic, because everyone is assuming that the details being tweeted about to be absolute truth as well though.  Also, it's not an unlikely scenario.

 

It's a known fact, and documented, that they enable full capacity on vehicles during events like Hurricane Dorian.  If your claim is that it happened because they forgot to software limit it after they replaced the battery, then it is equally as likely the misconfiguration happened during Dorian [the guy's business tweeting out about this is literally located in a zone where Dorian hit].

 

Actually, I'd argue earlier my scenarios regarding this happening during the hurricane would be more likely than during the warranty repair process messing up.  If they replace the battery, there is likely a lot more of an automated approach that they have to do in regard to it...vs during the hurricane they enable full range, but the backend script to revert the vehicles doesn't handle that rare use-case of a S60 having a 90kWh battery.

 

45 minutes ago, leadeater said:

The seller didn't remove 30kwh of battery capacity without consent. You want MCU2 then accept 30kwh removal or come pickup your car and we will no longer service it.

The seller didn't remove the 30kWh, but he sold it as a S90 with it being a S60.  It brings me back to the right-of-way argument.  It's like saying that the seller didn't take away the garage (that was built on a right of way), the city did...when in fact the seller knew it was built on a right-of-way (which fully entitles the city to destroy whatever is on it if need be).

 

46 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Tesla does not own the car, whenever I get my car serviced I must consent to any work and any parts purchases required

The guy literally got it so his Tesla can access the Tesla network to use the Tesla services.  This is literally tied into the service, the ability to purchase things such as extended range etc.  They are merely noticing that the extended range hasn't been a purchased option and disabling it.  Which leads me back to the fact that it's the original seller trying to pass off a S60 as a S90.

 

You cannot misrepresent what you are selling, which is exactly what the previous owner of the vehicle has done.

[AnonymousGuy]

Is there any way the buyer could have done due diligence to know the car was meant to be a 60 instead of a 90?

 

If I'm making a legal argument on this, it comes down to that.  If I know my checking account is supposed to have $100 in it, and I wake up with $1000, I can't get pissed that the bank realizes their error and takes back the $900 without warning.  I suspect Tesla has a fine print in the software too that "usage is consent for modification from Tesla" so buying a secondhand Tesla doesn't absolve you of their hooks.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

The guy literally got it so his Tesla can access the Tesla network to use the Tesla services.  This is literally tied into the service, the ability to purchase things such as extended range etc.  They are merely noticing that the extended range hasn't been a purchased option and disabling it.  Which leads me back to the fact that it's the original seller trying to pass off a S60 as a S90.

MCU2 upgrade and the battery capacity change are as far as I am concerned two separate non tied things since this vehicle would almost certainly had access to the Tesla network after the battery got changed under warranty. Yes MCU2 upgrade is needed to restore connectivity but you are assuming that the battery was swapped after network access was not functioning which just simply doesn't sound believable. I have no reason to doubt the battery was not replaced, that information would be evident and also would more than likely been told to each buyer. Battery age and health is the single most important factor for an EV. My Leaf has two odometers, one for the vehicle and one for the battery, they do not match because the battery was replaced.

 

The shutdown of connectivity only started in February 2022. How much you want to bet the battery was warranty replace before this date? A warranty that expired quite likely before this date. It's a 2013 model year vehicle with 8 year warranty (2013 + 8 = 2021). And since Tesla doesn't have traditional model years this means the car was purchased and received in 2013.

 

So based on this it's surely impossible that network services were not function with the new warranty replaced battery.

 

So no it's not tied to the service at all, MCU2 could have been installed without making a single change to the battery capacity. So unless MCU2 was batter at automatically detecting something like this and MCU1 was not the change would have been manually done.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If they replace the battery, there is likely a lot more of an automated approach that they have to do in regard to it

Sure, a company known for making mistakes quite often is so unlikely to have made this error? Hmm, that doesn't check out.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

then it is equally as likely the misconfiguration happened during Dorian

That's not how likelihood works. Flipping a coin and it landing on the edge is not equally as likely as Head or Tails.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

but the backend script to revert the vehicles doesn't handle that rare use-case of a S60 having a 90kWh battery.

It's not rare at all, many many 60's have 90 battery installed which is literally how they could offer this during that event in the first place.

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

the city did...when in fact the seller knew it was built on a right-of-way (which fully entitles the city to destroy whatever is on it if need be).

Which the city would legally be allowed to do, so yet again was Tesla legally allowed to do what they did?

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

[the guy's business tweeting out about this is literally located in a zone where Dorian hit].

Basically means nothing since a person known to be able to do this could be contacted by anybody from anywhere

 

And you know, I would expect Tesla knows every single car that was range extended during a storm and would have said so if that were the situation. Even in parking building, above and below ground I've pretty much always had connectivity. Either there are repeaters or the signal simply is able to bounce around in there, all be it bad but still functional.

 

Where there is 1 there is more, so where are all the other 60's driving around as 90's due to your situation proposed?

 

2 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

You cannot misrepresent what you are selling, which is exactly what the previous owner of the vehicle has done.

I don't think anyone is debating this at all. It just doesn't matter either. This could have ben a single owner vehicle and I'd still be saying tough nuts Tesla you make a mistake long ago and you can't just go making changes to property you do not own without consent. I'm perfectly fine with them saying pick MCU2 or 90kwh, not them making that choice for the owner. What if they preferred 90kwh over MCU2? Get a time machine?

[wanderingfool2]

19 minutes ago, leadeater said:

So no it's not tied to the service at all, MCU2 could have been installed without making a single change to the battery capacity. So unless MCU2 was batter at automatically detecting something like this and MCU1 was not the change would have been manually done.

The change of MCU2 was for the 4G coverage, which means he is using Tesla Services.  They can change the configuration, if the configuration isn't correct.  Under everyone's logic here, if I purchased a digital box from my neighbour that had unlimited channels (because it was tied to their account), and then Shaw sent a signal that disabled the channels then Shaw is doing the same thing as Tesla.  The guy is using Tesla services, they can change the configuration...flat out, there isn't arguing that point.  If he doesn't want Tesla changing configurations on his car, then he shouldn't have literally got them to install the thing that lets them do so!  So yea, the MCU is more or less directly linked to the ability for Tesla to do that, and it's part of the Tesla services.

 

If he didn't want to have Tesla services, he was more than welcome not to not upgrade the MCU; and stick with what he had.  Even now he likely has that option if he goes with a hacker, just he could expect to be excluded from things like the charger network

 

26 minutes ago, leadeater said:

That's not how likelihood works. Flipping a coin and it landing on the edge is not equally as likely as Head or Tails.

The guy tweeting about it was from NC, it stands to reason that the guy who purchased the Tesla was likely roughly in that area...this isn't the only guy who is capable of unlocking Tesla features.  You contact the local Tesla hacker first because if it's possible you.  So I would say that it is quite likely.

 

31 minutes ago, leadeater said:

And you know, I would expect Tesla knows every single car that was range extended during a storm and would have said so if that were the situation

Not necessarily.  They could easily just run a script saying all vehicles in these locations with the 60's enable, but having the script miss the 90's on reverting.  It's a quick thing they did, so more prone to errors.  vs. something like a battery swap, it would require more software calibration, that portion is likely more of an automated thing (and used multiple times), so you would hear more issues like this specifically then.

 

So I'm still saying it's more likely that it occurred during the hurricane bump up.

 

35 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's not rare at all, many many 60's have 90 battery installed which is literally how they could offer this during that event in the first place.

The majority have the 75kWh.  Where there was the "upgrade" path to the 75kWh through software.  The extended range at the time I believe used 85kWh (but might have been really 90kWh batteries).  So it is very likely that not too many Tesla S 60's have a 90 battery in them.

 

49 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Even in parking building, above and below ground I've pretty much always had connectivity

I know of plenty of parking garages that have absolutely no signal.  A former owner I use to work for who owned multiple Tesla's actually had to bring it to work and park it for the day to get updates because his place didn't have stable enough coverage.  So being in places without coverage is not exactly an uncommon occurrence.

 

55 minutes ago, leadeater said:

It's a 2013 model year vehicle with 8 year warranty (2013 + 8 = 2021). And since Tesla doesn't have traditional model years this means the car was purchased and received in 2013.

Well it was manufactured in 2013, so it could be anywhere from Jan to late Dec.  At least from what I've seen happen, they can sometimes assign a vehicle but still have the delivery a month or two out.  So yea, it could potentially have been a 2014 delivery of a 2013 vehicle; which would mean warranty expired in 2022 potentially.  Even if not, the 75kWh battery I think wasn't discontinued until early 2019; so the warranty happened likely between 2019 and 2022.  I am still suspecting it happened in 2019 with the hurricane though; as it seems to much of a perfect opportunity to have a vehicle set to the wrong configuration.

 

Again, everyone is basing it purely on what one guy has tweeted out about a customer who doesn't necessarily tell the full story.  [Just like the silly articles before about the repair on a vehicle that was actually leased not owned and the guy failed to have the correct insurance on it...yet everyone was blowing up about Tesla forcing the guy to purchase a new battery pack on a vehicle he owned].

 

I mean in the worst case scenario, [and I think this is unlikely], it was a late 2013 purchase, delivered in 2014.  The owner realizes the battery is within the degradation of limit where Tesla would warranty it.  The guy still drives it, because he knows it can be warrantied at the last possible moment (I don't know anyone who has done it, but have heard a few people with EV's talk about doing it if they fall into that scenario)...or the more sinister approach (which I've seen someone actually do with their Tesla), they wait until right before their warranty and then intentionally stress the battery (higher heat, full drains and charges) knowing if it gets a fresh battery they can resell it for a lot more.  Within the last month they kill the battery enough to be able to be warrantied.

 

From there a battery warranty could take a month or two (depending on location and what time you do it), during which time you get a loaner vehicle [or asked to keep driving until they get a battery].  Which means in the worst [but unlikely] scenario the battery could have been replaced as late as April 2022...or you know, 3 months ago. [Which would also put it past the time 3G was shutdown].

 

If you warranty the vehicle in the last month, in the worst case it would be Jan 2021 (so about 2 years) but it could be as late as April 2022.  Everyone is acting as though years have gone by, when in reality the worst case scenario it would have been about 3 months ago.

 

It also brings me back to what I was saying earlier.  Everyone is just making assumptions about the entire thing, we don't know the story...it's a story of a story at this point even.  So I can bet you that some details are wrong from the original Tweet

[tikker]

2 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

If I'm making a legal argument on this, it comes down to that.  If I know my checking account is supposed to have $100 in it, and I wake up with $1000, I can't get pissed that the bank realizes their error and takes back the $900 without warning.  I suspect Tesla has a fine print in the software too that "usage is consent for modification from Tesla" so buying a secondhand Tesla doesn't absolve you of their hooks.

You can definitely get pissed if they withdraw that without notice and, more importantly, without permission. If the bank simply took it, then as far as I know my local laws, they would simply be committing theft here, since they did not have your permission to suddenly withdraw money from your account. That doesn't mean they are helpless, though, as my local laws do compel you to pay back these kind of mistakes, but they have to do it through the proper channels. That means inform you of the mistake and request you to pay back the exact amount owed.

[AnonymousGuy]

21 minutes ago, tikker said:

You can definitely get pissed if they withdraw that without notice and, more importantly, without permission. If the bank simply took it, then as far as I know my local laws, they would simply be committing theft here, since they did not have your permission to suddenly withdraw money from your account. That doesn't mean they are helpless, though, as my local laws do compel you to pay back these kind of mistakes, but they have to do it through the proper channels. That means inform you of the mistake and request you to pay back the exact amount owed.

Depends on where you live but the logic is that possession doesn't automatically mean ownership.  Just because the money was in your account, if it was accidentally deposited it is not "yours".  So it's not "theft" because the money was never yours to begin with.

 

(I suspect the bank also already has you fine print permission to correct errors without notice when you open the account with them)

[tikker]

52 minutes ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Depends on where you live but the logic is that possession doesn't automatically mean ownership.  Just because the money was in your account, if it was accidentally deposited it is not "yours".  So it's not "theft" because the money was never yours to begin with.

 

(I suspect the bank also already has you fine print permission to correct errors without notice when you open the account with them)

The money is indeed not your property, but it not being your property doesn't mean it can't be stolen. I think I gave the example on another page, but if I steal my stolen bike back I can be charged with theft. If I can proof it's my bike the police will happily cut the lock. I just can't take it back on my own. I checked the general terms of my bank and they do mention they can correct mistakes they spot while providing their services, so they can probably sweep this under there as long as the transaction stayed between the bank and you. There have been multiple instances over the past couple of years where this has gone quite wrong though, so I do like strict regulations surrounding it. If some weird outage made it so there was no trace that the extra $900 was the bank's, they would have a much harder time defending such a withdrawal. The timeframes for wrong withdrawals or transfers to be easily contested is of the order of 2 months here. In the context of this thread, I doubt the bank would be allowed to now suddenly withdraw something they failed to catch say 5 years ago. That's beyond a normal mistake during service.

[LAwLz]

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

Well thing is it's not software.

The thing is that it literally is software. It is a software lock that limits what the hardware can do. Just like let's say Windows Home locks certain hardware functions that the Pro version unlocks.

This was done 100% through software. It is a software "issue". The device (the car) came with the wrong software so that was rectified when it was found out.

 

 

6 hours ago, leadeater said:

The issue is changing of the function after the fact when an established understanding of function has been made without notice or consent.

You mean just like for example Microsoft forces Windows updates and the users has little or no say in the matter? Yeah I get that. 

Sadly, we live in a world where the precedence is that users don't really get to choose what developers do with their software. 

 

 

 

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

I think you might be thinking of a slightly different thing, I don't mean "JDM Culture" etc I mean "My property, my rules, I own it". That's how cars are treated culturally, but that's simply how they have been since forever.

But the culture surrounding software is that the user doesn't own the software. What changed in this instance was purely the software. Are we now going to say that software companies are no longer allowed to patch software unless the user gives consent? 

Tesla did not physically rip out the battery and replaced it with a new, smaller one. They changed a line of code. That was it. 

[LAwLz]

3 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Is there any way the buyer could have done due diligence to know the car was meant to be a 60 instead of a 90?

 

If I'm making a legal argument on this, it comes down to that.  If I know my checking account is supposed to have $100 in it, and I wake up with $1000, I can't get pissed that the bank realizes their error and takes back the $900 without warning.  I suspect Tesla has a fine print in the software too that "usage is consent for modification from Tesla" so buying a secondhand Tesla doesn't absolve you of their hooks.

I am not sure if a user can confirm what the battery capacity should be set to.

But I am sure that the original owner knew that something had gone wrong. He bought a 60kWh Tesla and when he sold it he labelled it as a 90kWh model. I can't imagine that he conveniently "forgot" that he originally bought a 60kWh model when he was writing the listing.

 

The situation becomes really complicated because the car was sold under false pretences and the original owner was caught in the cross fire. If we want to continue your bank example, I would say this is what happened.

1. You wake up one morning and instead of your usual 100 dollars, you have 1000 dollars on your account.
2. You think, woho, free money. Since I am such an awesome forum user, you decide to give me 1000 dollars as a thank you for my great service.
3. The bank notices that they made the error, traces where the money went and notices that the money is in my account. What they do next is contact me and says "hey, we are going to take 900 dollars out of your account. That money that AnonymousGuy gave you? That was not his to give away to begin with. Sorry".

 

Obviously, I would be pissed at the bank. But in reality I would argue that you were the bad guy here. You noticed a mistake the bank had done and tried to exploit it. When the error was corrected I was the one who suffered from it. I should really be mad at you for not telling me that the money wasn't yours to begin with, but since the bank was the bearer of bad news and screwed me over I will of course get mad at them.

[leadeater]

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

This was done 100% through software

So, that doesn't make it software lol

 

Come on you know this, quit the silly "devils advocate" a battery is a physical thing you can touch and own.

 

Software is software

Hardware is hardware

 

This is hardware, literally zero argument here.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

The device (the car) came with the wrong software so that was rectified when it was found out.

No it came with a misconfigured piece of hardware.

 

1 hour ago, LAwLz said:

Tesla did not physically rip out the battery and replaced it with a new, smaller one. They changed a line of code. That was it. 

Correct, to someone's legally owned property without consent or notice. So again because nobody wants so bother to think logically here, is Tesla actually legally allowed to do this. IT'S THE ONLY THING THAT METTERS IN THE STORY 

 

Your laws aren't much different to mine, in basically every way. No Tesla here would not be allowed to do this and would be committing a crime.

[leadeater]

2 hours ago, AnonymousGuy said:

Depends on where you live but the logic is that possession doesn't automatically mean ownership.  Just because the money was in your account, if it was accidentally deposited it is not "yours".  So it's not "theft" because the money was never yours to begin with.

 

(I suspect the bank also already has you fine print permission to correct errors without notice when you open the account with them)

Unauthorized access to a bank account is also a banking violation and against the law. You are correct you must return it but that doesn't mean the bank can just go take it without consent.

[leadeater]

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Under everyone's logic here, if I purchased a digital box from my neighbour that had unlimited channels (because it was tied to their account), and then Shaw sent a signal that disabled the channels then Shaw is doing the same thing as Tesla

They can't just go changing the firmware on your TV though. MCU is MCU, battery is battery. MCU != Battery.

 

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

If he didn't want to have Tesla services, he was more than welcome not to not upgrade the MCU; and stick with what he had

Then give him the damn choice, duh.  Did Tesla do that?

 

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

They could easily just run a script saying all vehicles in these locations with the 60's enable, but having the script miss the 90's on reverting.

You have to be absolutely kidding. Every vehicle that talks to Tesla services is registered and identified, any commands etc would be logged. This is the only way to revert such a change.

 

You have any idea how stupid the way you said it would be done is? So every 60 owner that did pay for upgrade now only gets 60 because "Oops we were lazy and incompetent on a massive scale". For sure would of heard that one on the news.

3 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Even if not, the 75kWh battery I think wasn't discontinued until early 2019; so the warranty happened likely between 2019 and 2022.  I am still suspecting it happened in 2019 with the hurricane though; as it seems to much of a perfect opportunity to have a vehicle set to the wrong configuration.

Doesn't mean warranty replacement were done with 75kwh, depends how that is handled.

 

Also 100% you can know if a battery has been replaced, like I said my Leaf literally tells me so I have zero need to doubt the battery has not been replaced because it's a trivial thing to check and anyone in the EV market checks these types of things before buying. Value of EVs live and die on SOH of the battery.

 

Also just to point out an obvious fatal problem with all your calculations, so this vehicle had it's battery replaced by owner 1 and then managed to pass through two owners, while getting the battery fixed or after in the span of basically days for what you say to work out this way? Strong doubt on that one. Lets go with 1 month ownership for owner 2 before selling to owner 3, timeline is still pretty much impossible to work out how you think it could.

 

Maybe the details are just simply correct and the owners know the history of the car, that seems far more likely. So to repeat again, doesn't mean Tesla can do what they did without notification and consent. This part is really the only part I'd believe the current owner could be lying about, maybe he did get contact by Tesla and given the option and they just got pissy after accepting the range loss and changed their mind, but Tesla would know this and say so (if they had any sense).

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, leadeater said:

You have any idea how stupid the way you said it would be done is? So every 60 owner that did pay for upgrade now only gets 60 because "Oops we were lazy and incompetent on a massive scale". For sure would of heard that one on the news.

Just as stupid as it would be to assume that a warranty process they modified the vehicle [Since it should be a pretty automated process as well].  It wouldn't be affecting all users at a mass scale, especially if lets say the query involves those that don't have the subscription...Have you seriously not seen a query go wrong like that before, where one small use case was overlooked?  I sure as well have [in a multi-million dollar company the Canadian division once was double counting a product sales stats...until I was tasked of rewriting the backend queries when we were migrating, because they mixed ISO week and week in the queries iirc).

 

It's why I seriously believe they could have pushed the update to S 60's, but didn't run the correct query to revert all changes.

 

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

Also just to point out an obvious fatal problem with all your calculations, so this vehicle had it's battery replaced by owner 1 and then managed to pass through two owners, while getting the battery fixed or after in the span of basically days for what you say to work out this way?

And yet you seem to have ignored the fatal problem yourself.  You are choosing to believe a twitter post, you are assuming the information being given is correct (and not an assumption base).  He's literally giving a story his customer told, so we are already one party removed from the actual source of the information.

 

It's clear from the twitter post that the guy doesn't know the original date of the battery swap, but is maybe going on what is being told...or worse just assuming if the customer is telling him it's already been switched hands twice.  So yea, in the worst case scenario it could have been as late as April 2022.  Just because the tweet mentions he's the 3rd owner, doesn't mean that the warranty happened under the first owner.  He could just be assuming the date of warranty.

 

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

So to repeat again, doesn't mean Tesla can do what they did without notification and consent

And to repeat, he is using Tesla Services, the configuration of vehicle is part of the service.  And he literally enabled the service to be able to be run.  So yea, Tesla was in their right to do it.

 

5 hours ago, leadeater said:

They can't just go changing the firmware on your TV though. MCU is MCU, battery is battery. MCU != Battery.

They didn't touch the battery, they changed the configuration [which actually might also partially live on the MCU unit now I think of it].  Also, in my example they are reprogramming the digital box which would be legally yours and in your possession...but they are allowed to do that as the software utilizing their system.

[mr moose]

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

But Tesla did not sell a car with a 90kWh battery...

Should Tesla not be allowed to take something back that they did not sell? 

Telsa intentionally installed it for the original owner, the car did not belong to Telsa nor was it under any sales contract when they took it from the 3rd owner.

 

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

If Floatplane by accident gave me free unlimited access to Floatplane, should they not be allowed to take that back when they discover the accident?

Different thing altogether.  Floatplane is not a tangible object subject to ownership.

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

Are you sure about that, or is this something you feel should be the law?

Absolutely, it is my form belief that no company should be allowed to change at whim any product after the sale contract has expired.  If I buy a screw driver and then modify it to make it unscrew more than just what it was designed to do you wouldn't argue the company has a right to come and unmodify it on me.

16 hours ago, LAwLz said:

 

It doesn't cost Microsoft a single dime to give away Windows licenses, yet they charge for it. It certainly doesn't cost them anything to upgrade a Home license to a Pro license. Should that not be allowed either? And before you go "but it's different because it is software", please note that this is software as well. And software controls hardware, even in the case of for example Windows. Windows Home will not allow you to fully use certain hardware configurations that Pro allows you to.

Again, difference between a tangible product and a service.  I am talking about the cost of making physical products with multiple options.

 

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

Actually it 100% matters how this came about, as it shows whether or not Tesla would be entitled to (even if the new owner objected).  Contractual obligations can follow the object; it's back to my analogy of someone selling a house with something built on the right-of-way and trying to claim since the city didn't verify it was on the right of way and since the house has been sold multiple times with that building there that the city has no rights to remove it.

Again, those are different things.  How can anyone argue that a company could maintain the rights to alter a product indefinitely after it's sale?

 

15 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

 

You are assuming they have no right to change it.

 

No assumption, they have no right.  And trying to argue they do sets a very dangerous precedent for consumer rights.

 

You are literally arguing that a company can make it a condition of sale that the product always remains the property of them regardless of resales.   Congratulations, you no longer own anything nor have the ability to dictate how anything you have should be setup, managed, used, etc etc etc.

[Senzelian]

This really doesn't help to sell me on an electric car.